Blood & Whiskey #12
Don Winslow, Deepa Anappara, Joe Ide, Peng Shepard, Bill Roorbach & more
Hello friends and readers…
And, we’re back! I skipped April’s newsletter to recover from weeks on the road and many hundreds of highway miles touring for THE FIRST KENNEDYS: THE HUMBLE ROOTS OF AN AMERICAN DYNASTY. But I’m home now in my writing cave, and eager to share a few book, drink, and music recs with you.
I’d started this newsletter a year ago to indulge my passion for reading mysteries, thrillers, spy novels, suspense, and true crime (and my passion for cocktails) — also to find a way to connect with friends and other readers (and whiskey sippers) during Covid. As I begin Blood & Whiskey Year 2, I plan to try a few new features: more guest reviews from indie booksellers and authors; more guest cocktails (like those below) and playlists; possibly some audio reviews.
Your suggestions for new ideas are welcome. Email me back?
For now, let’s dive in with this month’s list…
City on Fire, by Don Winslow (purchased at Munro’s Books, Victoria, BC)
I first got hooked on Winslow’s earlier surf-noir novels (The Dawn Patrol, The Gentlemen’s Hour) before he went big with epics like The Cartel and The Force. His latest is a mobster saga, inspired by Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid, featuring rival gangs — Irish and Italian — in 1980s Rhode Island, full of cinematic gun battles, family duels and hand-to-hand combat, much of it triggered by the arrival of the beautiful Pam (in the Helen of Troy role). It’s a bit tragic and brutal and over the top at times, in a Godfather kind of way, which seems to be the point. City on Fire is the first in a planned trilogy, after which Winslow has said he plans to retire and get more involved in political advocacy.
Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, by Deepa Anappara (purchased at Malaprops, Asheville, NC)
The author’s years as a reporter in Delhi and Mumbai shine through in this story about 9-year-old Jai and his search for a missing classmate in the poor and dangerous but colorful and crowded bazaars and back alleys of an unnamed India city. Based on a true story, it’s a beautifully written and gripping book.
The Goodbye Coast: A Philip Marlowe Novel, by Joe Ide (purchased at Square Books, Oxford, MC)
I’ve been a fan of Ide’s high-energy series featuring moody, angry, amateur L.A. investigator Isaiah Quintabe (aka I.Q.). His latest is a reimagining of Raymond Chandler's classic detective, and in Ide’s modern-day version, Philip Marlowe is still sullen, still at home in L.A.’s thug-filled underworld, still funny and sometimes boozy. But this homage to Chandler and Marlowe is wholly fresh and original, funny and twisty and soulful. It’s a Hollywood story (a starlet’s daughter goes missing) but also a messy father-and-son story and, at it’s core, a story of Los Angeles as a city of crooks and strivers and cars and guns and food. The Goodbye Coast is like a love/hate letter to Chandler’s L.A., and Ide’s.
The Cartographers, by Peng Shepard (purchased at Munro’s Books, Victoria, BC)
Nell Young, the disgraced daughter of two famous cartographers — including her recently murdered father — gets drawn deep into her parents’ past and, after discovering a cheap gas station highway map from the ‘30s, into a trippy, mashed-up world of science and secrets and hidden spaces. Shepherd has a knack for plot, and I’d describe her writing as bouncy and hooky.
A Man Named Doll, Jonathan Ames (purchased at Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, NC)
This was a fun, funny, fast read, by a TV writer (and creator of Bored to Death) who I read about in the NY Times, featuring a plus-sized beast of an ex-LAPD cop turned half-assed P.I., working security at a massage parlor. Another story in which quirky, traffic-y, boozy L.A. is the life of the party.
Lucky Turtle, by Bill Roorbach
Not quite crime fiction, though the story begins with a robbery and the sentencing of teenaged Cindra Zoeller to a girls’ juvenile detention camp in Montana. That’s where Cindra meets a skinny, quiet young man named Lucky Turtle, with whom she escapes into the wilds of the Montana Rockies, with various pursuers on their trail, where Lucky’s complicated past is revealed. Roorbach is a precise, evocative, empathetic writer; he creates fully-formed characters like few writers can. His 2012 book Life Among Giants (main character: Lizard) remains one of my favorites. Lucky Turtle isn’t too far behind.
What my wife is reading: she’d been on a Barbara Cleverly tear, but then tackled Graham Green’s Our Man in Havana and the French thriller phenom The Anomaly, by Hervé Le Tellier (which I’ll review next month).
What we’re watching: During my book tour, my wife tore through three seasons of Deutschland (83, 86, 89). I’ve only finished Season 1 but it’s pretty fantastic — a young East German soldier reluctantly recruited to spy in West Germany, packed with ‘80s songs. We also dug The Staircase (HBO Max), and I’m looking forward to the new David Simon + George Pelecanos series, We Own This City (also HBO).
Cocktail(s) of the Month…
To make up for missing last month, here are two whiskey drinks to celebrate the end of spring (which, here in Seattle, still feels more like the lingering dregs of f*#king winter)…
The Uptown Manhattan
This twist on the Manhattan comes from my friend David, who suggests swapping vermouth for this homemade ginger liquer. Says David: “Make this ginger liquor, use it in place of vermouth in a Manhattan and voila, you have an Upper Manhattan.”
For the liquer:
2 ounces ginger root
1 vanilla bean
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups water
1 orange
1 1/2 cups brandy
Peel ginger and cut into thin slices. Split vanilla bean in half lengthwise. Bring ginger, vanilla, sugar, and water to a boil; reduce to medium-low and simmer until ginger is soft—about 20 minutes. Let the syrup cool. Zest the orange and combine zest, syrup, and the brandy in a sealable glass container. Let it steep for a day, remove the vanilla bean, and let steep for another day. Strain mixture through a coffee filter and let it sit for one more day to let flavors mix + mellow.
For the cocktail:
Mix 2 parts bourbon + 1 part ginger liquer + a few dashes of your favorite bitters. Shake with ice and pout into a chilled coupe glass with a cherry granish.
Compliments of the Sip & Read Book Club at Veranda, this “dark and mysterious” take on the Sazerac, inspired by Shepherd’s book, adds rum and amaro to the mix. (And here’s Veranda’s interview with the author, Peng Shepherd.)
Rinse a chilled glass with 1/2 tsp. absinthe, discarding the excess. Combine all other ingredients in a mixing glass or shaker with ice. Stir/shake until chilled.
1 oz. rye whiskey
1/2 oz. aged rum
1/2 oz. Braulio
1 tsp. demerara syrup
3 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
1 dash Angostura bitters
Strain into the chilled glass, garnish with a lemon twist.
Playlist of the Month
All ‘80s tunes — the soundtrack from Deutschland 83 — including greats from Bowie, The Cure, The Police, Grace Jones, the Eurythmics and more. Also: 10cc
Finally… thanks to those who came out for some of my FIRST KENNEDYS book events. It was a thrill to hang with Ace Atkins and a few other Oxford, Miss. writers at Square Books; with my pal Denise Kiernan in Asheville, NC, sipping cocktails mixed by her hubby Joe D’Agnese during our virtual event at Malaprops; and with Wajahat Ali at Politics & Prose in DC.
Recordings of some of my event talks and other interviews are on my website, HERE. Thanks again to those who’ve read THE FIRST KENNEDYS and took the time to let me know or gave it a good review at Amazon (always appreciated).
yours in books,
-Neal
Find me on Instagram; sometimes on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Goodreads
“This is not just the story of the Kennedys; Thompson paints a picture of life for many Irish immigrants. History buffs should pick up this book immediately.” —Booklist
“Bridget Kennedy emerges as such a formidable woman in Thompson's telling.” —Irish Central
“Now comes Neal Thompson, who in his splendidly heterodox The First Kennedys shows that before the lurid patriarchy of Joe there was the winning matriarchy of Bridget.” —Air Mail
“In this fascinating book, Neal Thompson gives Bridget her due—and in the process, makes us reconsider JFK’s origin story.” —Alexis Coe
“a chronicle that ranks with the richly evocative work of Doris Kearns Goodwin and Thomas H. O’Connor .” —Boston Globe
“It's great storytelling." —Timothy Egan